January 10, 2007

Trust You vs. Prove It

Over the last two months, I've had programming interviews with over a dozen firms, but all of them have had one thing in common that really disturbs me. Not one of them asked me to do any coding during the interview.

I get asked trivia questions related to various aspects of the programming languages in question, lots of personality chemistry questions, some architecture and object composition questions, and quite a bit about my previous work, but it always comes down to "we trust what you say" instead of "prove you can do it."

I don't know if it's because of my previous employer, or because when people talk to me, they get the feeling that I really understand what is going on, but I am really concerned about this trend as a whole.

With testers, it is fairly easy to evaluate someone's observation, logic-solving and communication skills, but with developers, you really have to look at some code. After all, there is a high likelihood that you're going to have to go swimming in their code in the future, and if you get stuck in a quagmire then, well, all the chemistry in the world isn't going to save you.

2 comments:

tarzan said...

I think there is something wrong with the interviewing process at many companies. I went through a number of interviews when I was laid off and I was asked idiotic questions. I was oftened asked something they pulled out of a book on how to interview a technical person. It's sad.

I have over 15+ years of professional experience in IT and usually do well when I interview with people who have done what I do for at least 10 years and know what to asked an experienced DBA. Most of my interviews were with people who had little or no experience with doing DBA work and they ask all kinds of idiotic questions.

Fortunately, I was able to find a few good companies with very talented people. I was made several offers and decided to join them. It does turn out good if you hold your horses and wait for the opportunity you feel is good for you.

Word Imp said...

What you're saying about the interviews you've been to does sound disturbing. I guess the company that does ask that question will be the one to go for.